salesman Archives - wibbler.com

On Saturday, for the first time in a few months, I went to a house party. My friend Mel had invited Jac and I (purely for entertainment value, apparently) to South London for a knees up, and, after a visit to Sainsbury’s, where I asked a complete stranger if he had any marshmellows (I SWEAR he looked like he worked there…), we duly turned up with some alcohol and, randomly, a small packet of Gungo peas. “Finger food”, Jac explained, although quite how a selection of small dried peas from Jamaica could pass as ideal party nibbles, no-one could quite explain. Least of all Jac…
After loudly and mistakenly calling my good friend Ellie W-P “Mel” whilst everyone dissolved in tears of laughter around me, Jac and I settled into our well-worn “party joker” monikers. Ellie C did the honours on the barbeque, managing to drop most of the food through the bars into the ash, and forgetting to bring round the dips, instead just furnishing us with bread sticks. The evening, bless it, passed largely without incident, save for Jac’s poor hearing – he mistook the name Claudia Schiffer for Corduroy Shifter (“that well-known trouser salesman”), and his uncanny ability to make me cry with laughter. During a lull in the conversation, I noticed a strange waft coming in through the window. “Do you have an Indian round here?”, I asked, noting the familiar smell of an indian restaurant, “There’s a strange smell coming from outside…”. “Yes, ” replied Mel, “there’s one just around the corner”. At which point Jac, completely misunderstanding the situation, yelled out the window, “GO AND HAVE A SHOWER, YOU SMELLY MAN”.
I didn’t fully recover for several minutes…